1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to graphical display systems and, in particular, to a system and method utilizing multiple processes to render graphical data.
2. Related Art
Computer graphical display systems are commonly used for displaying graphical representations of two-dimensional and/or three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional display device, such as a cathode ray tube, for example. In this regard, a computer graphical display system normally includes one or more graphics applications having graphical data that defines one or more graphical objects. When a graphical object is to be displayed, the graphics application submits a command or a set of commands, referred to hereafter as a “drawing command,” for drawing the object. The drawing command includes or is associated with graphical data that defines the color value and possibly other attributes for each pixel of the object.
In response to the drawing command, a graphics pipeline within the graphical display system renders the command's graphical data to a frame buffer. The data within the frame buffer defines the display attributes (e.g., color) for each pixel of a display device, which display device periodically reads the frame buffer and colors each pixel displayed by the display device according to each pixel's corresponding color value in the frame buffer. Moreover, by rendering the graphical data of the drawing command to the frame buffer, the image displayed by the output device is eventually updated to include an image of the object defined by the graphical data of the drawing command.
Higher quality images are often defined by larger amounts of graphical data. However, in general, increasing the amount of graphical data defining an image to be displayed undesirably increases the amount time required for a graphical display system to render the graphical data. Indeed, when a graphical display system is processing time-consuming graphics commands, other functions performed by the graphical display system, such as receiving user input, can be significantly delayed.